i must be a car

While looking through a notebook from summer two years ago, looking for field-notes, I found this small piece written as a writing exercise. It's whimsical, hence here, over two years later...

I failed to notice the children. Latr, while drinking tea, he told me -- there were children there. In their mother's arms. Underweight. Too quiet. Bandaged.
I saw the photos stuck on the soot blackened walls. I saw the bats. I failed to notice the children.

"You have to be a father for that."

I did not see the birds today, sitting on the shimmering wires, reflected with clouds in the roadside pools. I did not notice them flying off when footsteps rippled the water.

Maybe you have to be a bird for that.

I did see, while passing in a car, a battered wheelbarrow and a broken jeep, standing together in the rain against a peeling wall. Rahat Nusrat was playing on the radio.

I must be a car. I must have a heart of rusting gears.